Abstract

The Kafkaesque portrayal of the dichotomy between human brutality and monstrous gentleness can been seen in works such as The Metamorphosis (1915) and “A Hunger Artist” (1922). The depiction of the alienated state of the protagonists under the inevitable cruelty of worldly gaze denies the incompatibility of humanness and monstrosity. In other words, the more human-like characters possess monstrous brutality in their act of peripheralizing the others, while those who are more monster-like are embodied with the sweetness of human predicament. These observations tend to verify Derrida’s statement that “[m]onsters cannot be announced. One cannot say ‘here are our monsters’, without immediately turning the monsters into pets” (Derrida 79). Being inspired by Derrida’s stance, this paper explores the applicability of this aforesaid notion to Kafka’s monsters.